It's January and that means it's the month of "Sanctity of Human Life." And I was thinking back over recent elections and how the issue of abortion seems to be losing ground in terms of major debate. Many would say that's a good ting.

But, as we've reported many times leading up to the 2008 presidential election about the emergence of the religious political left, and their efforts to redefine 'evangelical' and specifically, 'pro-life,' I couldn't help thinking again this month about...

The Matthew 25 Network, one of the religious left's efforts to elect Barack Obama in 2008, which came out with the "Pro-Life Obama.com" website, which at the time I said:

"There are few things that surprise me any more, but I have to admit, when I read that a website had been launched entitled 'ProLife Obama' I could hardly believe it. How could such a claim be made? By redefining the pro-life cause.

"Why? Because Barack Obama is one of the most liberal Senators, and one of the most radical in his pro-abortion stance.He has said (promising Planned Parenthood) that the first thing he will do upon being election President is to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which would virtually wipe out all current restrictions surrounding abortion.

"A product of the Matthew 25 Project, this new pro-Obama website claims that, if elected president, Obama would "drastically reduce abortion" and "promote life with dignity for all from the beginning of life to the end." But how would he do this? Certainlynot by appointing culture of life judges.

"Prolifeproobama.comis the product of the the same 527 group that created radio ads this summer aimed at Christian radio stations."

In a persistent effort to rid the public square of any religious voices, one the few voices that might be left after the 2008 election, that is, the American Humanist Association, launched an advertising campaign to "raise awareness" of humanist doctrine. On ethics, they state:

"Morality doesn't come from religion. It's a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience."

Competing against God would no doubt make an individual or organization insecure, necessitating the launch of a campaign aimed at desensitizing the voting public against the existence of God. Apart from their inability to account for objective good, they clearly are inconsistent in application of tolerance. A pluralistic public square is indeed what we have, and in a democratic society the predominant beliefs of the people are going to have the greatest impact. So organizations like the American Humanist Association go on, poisoning the well against theistic perspectives on public issues.

But to the heart of this advertising, it's no surprise that they would try to argue for goodness without God. As part of how man was created, he can have a sense of right and wrong, good and evil. But he'll certainly struggle giving an account for the right and the good in absolute terms. Humanism leaves us in the mire of relativism, with numerous interpretations of the right and the good.

As we move into the new administration in 2009, we will undoubtedly encounter more efforts to promote humanistic ideals at the expense of policies that protect human life and promote human dignity. Resulting from this will be more confidence for the anti-theistic verbiage. Clearly we're in for a rough ride, but certainly not a without an aggressive response.

The Modesty Revolution: Feminism's 4th Wave

At the 2008 VH1 music awards, singer Jordin Sparks challenged show host Russell Brand on his ridicule of promise rings, rings that signify a pledge to remain sexually pure until marriage. Standing up to the lies of 2nd and 3rd wave feminism, Sparks is one of many young women demanding a change in perspective. For them, the spirit of feminism is about opportunity and freedom, not rights at the expense of dignity and self-respect. This is the essence of what author Wendy Shalit calls The Good Girl Revolution.

Shalit's book, by the same title, documents story after story of young women who are tired of the sexual exhibitionism that defines contemporary feminism. They understand the backwards logic of this in that it cancels out the work of the early feminists who wanted to be taken seriously as intellectual equals instead of merely objects of sexual gratification.

The Girlcotters are a group of young women known for their objection to the Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts for girls that say "who needs brains when you have these." A young group of feminists, Shalit spends many pages telling their story, leading up to their invitation to be guests at a NOW conference. Here is what one of the girls had to say about the conference:

We went to the NOW conference last week, and I support equality and would never like to be controlled by a man, but the NOW conference was more like a brainwashing feminist summit than anything else. They had this artistic performance that was so much about sex and how much all men suck; it really made me feel sick...Those three days were awfully confusing for me...I mean, we got the Women of Action award for what we've done, but...I think we've been misunderstood. Everyone thinks that we are so feminist, but, frankly, most of us are not that radical. We just want to be on par with men...I thought that they were very reasonable, middle-of-the-road like me, but I guess I was somewhat mistaken. (page 235)

The Girlcotters are evidence of NOW conferences hard at work to exert their influence on young women (where is the church????). It's exciting to know that this young woman could think for herself, that she could be confident and retain her self-respect when clearly NOW was going to be no help in that regard.

What Shalit points out in numerous ways in GGR is that 2nd and 3rd wave feminists cannot accommodate today's young feminists who embrace modesty as a way to value themselves. The feminists of previous generations hold that promoting modesty is a sell-out to patriarchy, but I can't understand how young women giving themselves over entirely without emotional or commitment safety is of any benefit to woman.

Desiring fair and equal treatment between men and women is a noble pursuit, but women have deceived themselves into thinking that being bad, engaging in casual sex and and other forms of exhibitionism puts them on par with men. In fact, it accomplishes quite the opposite and the evidence is that sexism is still a serious problem in our culture. I believe we can place the blame on women who have made it easy for men to not take any of us seriously.

Response To "Abortion Isn't A Religious Issue"

Abortion isn't a religious issue according to Garry Wills in a LA Times opinion. If you read the article with a highlighter, searching it for fallacies, you will have a very colorful document when finished. Please check out the article for yourself, I want to address some core issues here.

First of all, this rant against evangelicals opposing abortion on the basis of religion is terribly amusing given that he doesn't quote a single evangelical Christian theologian, philosopher, bioethicist, biologist, etc. Interestingly, he suggests that the relevant experts are philosophers, neurobiologists, embryologists. Evangelicals want to exclude them because most give answers they do not want to hear. Apparently his circle of influence is very small, he can't even find a Christian philosopher? And by virtue of his list of qualified professionals, he's left himself out, thus rendering his commentary null and void. After all, what could a historian possibly know about human dignity, when life begins, or about theological arguments supporting the life position?!

For a historian, he does make an excellent point about the issue of exceptions. I agree with him that a consistent life ethic would exclude making exceptions for abortion, because as he states,

"the circumstances of conception should not change the nature of the thing conceived." I've called Sean Hannity on this before.

The heart of Wills' article is the belief that "there is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion." It's curious that he includes 'defending' abortion, I'm sure the folks at RCRC aren't very happy with him on that. What Wills misses is an entire body of work on the topic of human dignity. Human dignity is the basis for respecting persons and is grounded in the fact that all persons are created in the image of God. This is the basis for the evangelical prolife position and Wills misses it entirely.

The absurdities of this article continue with statements such as:

"The universal mandate to preserve "human life" makes no sense. My hair is human life -- it is not canine hair, and it is living. It grows. When it grows too long, I have it cut. Is that aborting human life? The same with my growing human fingernails. An evangelical might respond that my hair does not have the potential to become a person. True. But semen has the potential to become a person, and we do not preserve every bit of semen that is ejaculated but never fertilizes an egg."

Is this guy serious? Sperm is a necessary component of fertilizing an egg (unless we are talking about SCNT) but the sperm on its own will never mature into an adult human person. Do we really have to explain these things?

The Faith Of 'Americans United'

Americans United put out a press release demanding that the Florida State School Board not consider the inclusion of creationism or intelligent design as a part of public school curriculum. Barry Lynn, who manipulatively dons the title "Rev," says that "public schools must teach science, not religion, in science classes." The press release also states that "the Constitution requires a separation of church and state and that the courts have repeatedly forbidden teaching religion in science classes."

We are so past the point of needing to address the role that philosophical/theological presuppositions play in the minds of Darwinists. They aren't even attempting to argue science, rather they are playing a political game intended to further marginalize evangelicals. So let's look closer at the claims of these materialists...and recognize what is a matter of philosophy-not science-on their part.

The latest issue of Salvo magazine sums things up well:

"Scientific naturalism is a philosophical position that assumes an entirely materialistic origin to the universe-a faith claim for which Darwinists have no proof whatsoever..."

Though Intelligent Design doesn't out of logical necessity preclude the possibility of evolution, it does counter well what is the prevailing notion in the public arena-that God is dead and Darwinists are purely objective observers...and that is their fatal flaw.

Beginning with the idea that the material world is all that exists has the Darwinist (philosophical materialist) in the field of philosophy and theology, not science. They simply cannot observe what happened first unless time travel is now also possible.

So while Darwinists are dabbling in philosophy, they need to ask themselves how it is that they can know that only the natural exists.

Such an assertion is not only a claim to universal knowledge, but is the epitomy of arrogance and political correctness - not to mention just plain foolish.